Spore (all sorts of awesome)

[miir]

I'll probably try hard on

[Funkmasterr]

I'll probably try hard on

That's right bitch, assume the position.

[Deward]

Let me preface this by saying that I enjoy the game so far. I find some pretty annoying parts to it that will likely kill the replayability for me though.

I have played red and green up to space. Only on easy but up to space was really easy (as it should be). I also could give a rat's ass about doing my own customizing beyond the creature itself.

The first phase is rather easy. Swim around and eat shit. To get all the upgrades, you need to kill one of every type of creature you encounter. The first time you kill something you get their special ability. Unfortunately, once you leave this stage most of the abilities no longer work. For instance, I had a herbivore that got a lightning blast ability that was great for defense. Once I left the water though it was just eye candy. So essentially running around collecting stuff isn't worth the effort as far as I can tell.

Phase two is the longest phase (aside from space). You can get through it really fast with a red creature. Just kill everything. Green takes a bit more time. Once again, you can collect a lot of the extra goodies but you are essentially just looking for the DNA so you can customize your creature into its final form. If you are just building a basic bipedal creature then you could probably go through this pretty fast. If you want the 8 legged spider type then expect to run around a hell of a lot longer. You don't get to do any more customization of your creature after this stage so don't leave until you are ready. One thing I recommend before you leave is to throw the biggest spitter you can on. It will give your guys a ranged DOT attack in the tribal stage.

Phase three is the tribal phase. This phase goes fast as a red. Just build up your village and kill everyone. Greens can get through this stage faster than reds. Even if someone is really pissed at you, all you have to do is dump some food on them. Then you just load your guys up with music instruments and conquer the enemy that way. Pretty simplistic and rather boring.

Phase four looks cool but it is rather boring and easy as well. Pretty much the same strategy for both red and green. Collect all the spice fountain thingies. Pump out a bunch of units and conquer or convert the enemy. Annoying part of this phase is that you can not transport your ground units across water. This is pretty retarded in my opinion but once you get planes it doesn't really matter. My social green got a special ability after 4 or 5 conquered cities that let him conquer all the rest at the same time instantly.

Phase 5 is space. The space phase is hard even on easy. First off they make you drop your first (and only free) colonization pod on a shit planet. Terraforming isn't hard once you figure it out but while you are doing that, other species are gobbling up the planets in the area.

If you run into a Red enemy and don't get him allied rather quickly then you are probably fucked. Far as I can tell, your species only gets one space ship and you have to try and protect your whole civilization with it. To make matters worse, the combat in space sucks. I didn't get far in either scenario I played but I couldn't shoot the enemy unless i was in the planet screen itself yet they can shoot you. When you do get into the planet screen, the enemy circles you at the speed of light landing shots on you while you feebly try to race your mouse around trying to hit him. And then just about the time he is dead, he will race off (again at light speed) and heal up. Combat is easier when you can get a couple allies but the computer keys on them and they usually don't last long.

Another annoyance is that while there are lots of little quests to do, finding the location to go to do them is rather frustrating. You could spend several minutes trying to find the right planet while your competition expands. The money for them is rather trivial and they are only good for kissing alien ass.

When I got my red creature to this stage, I started out rather well. You really can't be as aggressive in this stage because you only have one ship to fight with. The best way to make money is to carry spice back and forth between planets. I was doing pretty good, had a 2 million stash and had just got my first colony properly terraformed. Then I ran into a rather aggressive red empire who started attacking almost immediately. Somehow the computer can attack with dozens of ships but I could only figure out how to build one so I got killed off pretty quick.

I am about two or three hours into my Green creature's space odyssey and seeing similar problems already. Can't find the quests fast enough but the fact that I am a super social tree hugger has kept people off my back long enough to try and get them chummy with me. At least I have had time to see new equipment. There is a gun available that auto targets enemies so that could help in combat.

I will continue to play it. I have a lot of things to see yet in the space phase so I am hoping it gets better. I must say though that if space is this hard on the easy setting then I can't imagine what it will be like on the other settings.

[Spang]

Here's one of my creations. It eats fruit, but kills other creatures, too!

[Lynks]

Yeah, it kills the females of the species. I really like it though.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

I'm really disappointed in this. Phases 3-4 are super easy and boring, and Phase 5 is ridiculously hard and not particularly enjoyable. I was hoping for a gameplay that was a lot more open-ended, but it's really only the first couple of phases - the creature creation part - that has the free-flowing feeling I wanted. The rest is just a normal, not particularly well thought out, RTS.

7/10 for the first play through, 5/10 for replay value (and that's only for the first 2 phases).

[Winnow]

This game is like the Wii!

It looks great initially but is going to sit on a shelf pretty quick. I was hoping for more replayability.

Just like the Wii, when someone comes over that hasn't seen it before, Spore will be interesting to demo.

[Funkmasterr]

Surprisingly, I don't think it's as bad as everyone else seems to. I was expecting the opposite.

[Fash]

I am psyched about the graphics and scale of this game... The cell stage is my favorite, how the things in the background continue to come into focus and then the forefront. I'm still in the creature phase on both games I started, one carnivore one herbivore. Playing it in 1920x1080 on a 40" screen helps. I haven't invested much time though because I'm fooling around with this girl from work, which is much more fun than any video game.

[Winnow]

I was listening to a podcast today talking about how Spore imports random creatures into your game if you're connected to the internet and you also have the ability to choose a friends list which will introduce your friends' spore creations into your game.

That part of Sport is really cool. The podcast comments also echoed some on here about the first two stages being really fun but 3-4 being easy and not too interesting with the Space stage undetermined but large in scope.

Lots of good things about Spore which hopefully will move on to other games.

[Spang]

In your Spore Page (I think that's what it's called) within the game you can see a list of actions that involved creatures you created. The creature I photographed above has been domesticated or killed to extinction in the games of others.

[Funkmasterr]

In your Spore Page (I think that's what it's called) within the game you can see a list of actions that involved creatures you created. The creature I photographed above has been domesticated or killed to extinction in the games of others.

I haven't looked at that yet, I have to make a few last changes to mine and I'll be ready to rock. I'll post a pic when I'm done.

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

Creature Stage was hella fun!

Act fast in Space Stage though, either by domination or diplomacy (getting allies and trade routes asap).

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

I am psyched about the graphics and scale of this game... The cell stage is my favorite, how the things in the background continue to come into focus and then the forefront. I'm still in the creature phase on both games I started, one carnivore one herbivore. Playing it in 1920x1080 on a 40" screen helps. I haven't invested much time though because I'm fooling around with this girl from work, which is much more fun than any video game.

After you are done with the girl, i recommend eating veggies until you are around halfway on your progressbar and then removing the herbi-mouth and replacing it with the carnivore-mouth and finishing the cell-stage by eating meat.

Then you will get a blue victory and become an Omnivore Creature. (by eating half and half meat and veggies)

During the Creature stage, you could do it totally agressive and win by biting,striking,spitting and whatnot to get a red victory.

During Tribal and Civilization, do it the peaceful way (no wars!) and then getting two green social wins.

Then you will begin the Space Stage with the Ecologist-Trait, which makes Colonization VERY easy!

I prefer either Ecologist or Zealot during Space Stage.

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

If ya wants to use my spaceships.

http://www.spore.com/view/profile/Kwonryu